If you’ve ever bought a hand tool from Lowe’s or Home Depot, there’s a chance that tool was made right on Long Island at Great Neck Saw Manufacturers.
Though not founded or based in Great Neck, as its name may have you believe, the fourth-generation manufacturing company in Mineola is surely a Long Island success story with international impact.
“It’s constantly morphing because the industry demands us to morph,” said Robert Jacoff, co-president of Great Neck Saw, during an interview with Fox 5 News in 2019. “We sell hardware, we sell automotive, we sell sporting goods.”
Great Neck Saw has four plants in the United States. Its largest in Mineola has about 200 employees that help manufacture all kinds of cutting and measuring tools. The company then sells the tools wholesale to retailers across the country, as well as in Canada, Mexico, Central America, and parts of South America and Europe.
It all started when Robert’s great-grandfather, tool and die maker Samuel Jacoff, and his wife, Sarah, launched a hacksaw blade manufacturing business in Pittsfield, Mass., in 1919. Ten years into the venture, a fire destroyed their building. So they merged with another blade company: Great Neck Manufacturing.
In 1941, their expansion — and road to global success — really kicked off. They bought a hacksaw company and constructed the plant in Mineola, where Great Neck Saw now makes hundreds of thousands of tools per month. The company continued to buy large brands and eventually, by 1971, became a nationwide force in hand tool manufacturing.
Today Great Neck Saw is one of the nation’s largest privately owned hand tool distributors. The company owns several popular brands, including Sheffield blades, OEM Tools, Buck Bros., and Mayes Brothers. It also manufactures Husky wrenches and Cobalt products.
Aside from tools, Great Neck Saw offers a robust line of related products in other markets, such as sporting goods, home improvement, and automotive. The company supplies everything from lightbulbs and storage sets to air compressors and generators to gloves and step stools — basically, most tools and gadgets that a mechanic, construction worker, or everyday handyperson could need.
